“I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” — Malachi 1:2

It’s a conversation that happens with all too much regularity in a marriage.  A husband tells his wife, “I love you,” to which she replies, “How have you loved me?”  As the 90s rock band Extreme famously crooned, it takes more than words in order for someone else to know they are loved and valued.  Words matter, but just as much are the actions and symbols of love.  Every relationship goes through periods of complacency, where we take the love and presence of the other person for granted and just assume they know they are loved. Sometimes, though, the husband might be doing everything right, but the wife has stopped paying attention.  It isn’t just our relationships with other people that go through these seasons, we also experience it in our relationship with God — perhaps even moreso.

In our Bibles, the book of Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament.  It’s one of the shortest books in the entire Bible and is unique in that it is basically a series of six disputations. “God lays a charge against his people concerning some failure in covenant, to which the people respond by asking how they have failed. The response always begins with “But you say” (which was perhaps not stated verbally—Malachi may be exposing only half-conscious resentment and resistance to God). The third step in this pattern shows God answering his people’s question; the fourth closes each section with the Lord applying this answer, with warnings and promises for the future.” (ESV Expositor’s Commentary)

We don’t know exactly when Malachi delivered his prophecies, but we do know it was after the exiles had returned to Jerusalem and the temple rebuilt — at least partially.  And yet, the Messiah had yet to return.  It had been hundreds of years since the Israelites had received God’s promises of restoration and redemption, and even longer since they had last seen the miraculous works of the Lord.  It would still be yet another 300-400 years before Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, finally came, bringing with him miraculous works and fulfilling all of the promises of God.  But over the course of hundreds of years of waiting, the Israelites began wondering if God still loved, let alone cared, for them.  No word from the prophets, no miraculous signs and wonders, no change in their circumstances.  At best, the people and the priests started taking God’s love for granted; at worst, they began to treat God with disdain and disrespect — going through the motions of love but without any feeling or intent.

In the big-picture sense, like the Israelites we’ve been waiting a really, really long time for Jesus to return and come through on His promises.  How close we are to that moment depends on who you ask, but it’s probably pretty safe to say it’s not going to be tomorrow.  But that’s not the only way we’re waiting on God or wondering if He still loves us.  We’re all waiting on God for something.  Maybe it’s deliverance from a particular sin we’ve been struggling with for a long time, or fractured relationships in our family, or a job situation that is… less than desirable, or a medical diagnosis we didn’t see coming and don’t know how to endure.  Maybe it’s something else entirely.  When God goes silent, it becomes really hard to continue to trust Him and we begin to wonder if He still loves us.

Lent is the season in the Christian calendar that provides us with an opportunity to sit in the silence of God and raise our broken-hearted plea to the Lord, “How have you loved me?”  Lent is an old English word that means “springtime.”  Spring is the season when the blossoms break forth and new growth appears, but before that the dross and refuse left over from winter needs to be cleared away.  In the earliest days and weeks of spring, it doesn’t look like anything is happening.  It looks as if winter succeeded in killing everything off.  But appearances are deceiving.  Through the long, cold, dark weeks of winter, a lot has been happening underground and out of sight.  Necessary work without which the blooms and blossoms of spring will not thrive, if they sprout at all.  It might seem like God has forgotten His love for you and that He is no longer at work, but the truth is the exact opposite.  He has never stopped loving you, nor has He stopped working for and on you.  Hold fast. Pay attention and look for the evidence of God’s presence and His love. Be patient.  Easter is coming, and the Son of Righteousness has come and will come again for you.

But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. – Malachi 4:2

Blessings,

Rev. David Garrison